I took the long weekend off, leaving my GuiltBag in a drawer at work and resolving to relax, to clear my mind after a couple of very intense weeks. In between cleaning, commerce (I bought a vacuum cleaner, a bed frame, and one of those Ikea Poang chairs that are so comfortable you never want to stand up again–thanks, Craigslist!), and catching up with friends I hadn’t seen in ages, I read.

A lot.

First, I finished Atonement (which, appropriately enough, I began reading on Yom Kippur afternoon). I read my first Ian McEwan novel, On Chesil Beach, this summer in Scotland on a recommendation from Allyson, my writing tutor. She had me read it because it’s a great example of how to create tension from literally nothing happening. What kept me reading, though, and made me want to read more McEwan, was his writing style. McEwan’s an old-fashioned writery writer, relying on sumptuous and sensual description to carry the weight of his stories, which, from what I can tell so far, mostly take place in his characters’ internal lives. Check this out, from Atonement:

She went indoors, quickly crossed the black and white tiled hall–how familiar her echoing steps, how annoying–and paused to catch her breath in the doorway of the drawing room. Dripping coolly onto her sandaled feet, the untidy bunch of rosebay willow herb and irises brought her to a better state of mind. The vase she was looking for was on an American cherry-wood table by the French windows which were slightly ajar. Their southeast aspect had permitted parallelograms of morning sunlights to advance across the powder-blue carpet. Her breathing slowed and her desire for a cigarette deepened, but still she hesitated by the door, momentarily held by the perfection of the scene–by the three faded Chesterfields grouped around the almost new Gothic fireplace in which stood a display of wintry sedge, by the unplayed, untuned harpsichord and the unused rosewood music stands, by the heavy velvet curtains, loosely restrained by and orange and blue tasseled rope, framing a partial view of cloudless sky and the yellow and gray mottled terrace where chamomile and feverfew grew between the paving cracks. A set of steps led down to the lawn on whose border Robbie still worked, and which extended to the Triton fountain fifty yards away.

I love how McEwan writes so heavily and softly–the wood, textiles, and herbs are almost smellable in this scene. And the colors–don’t even get me started on the colors. This is writing that is a feast for the reader. I usually tear through novels, but I took my time with Atonement, even though it’s relatively short. I just couldn’t read huge chunks of it at a time without feeling like I’d just eaten a very big meal.

So I just said I’m a fast reader, and I think I proved it by swallowing all of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road yesterday. Literally. I was up at dawn–my sister spent Saturday night at my apartment, and I gave her my bed, leaving me with first the too-small couch, then the floor–so I just started reading, waiting until it wouldn’t be rude for me to make a lot of noise. The Road is definitely McCarthy’s fastest-paced book, but that doesn’t mean it’s an easy read–the premise itself is tough enough (a man and his young son travel across postapocalyptic America), and there are some scenes (cannibalism figures heavily in this book) that are going to haunt me for a while. But McCarthy’s style just moves in this one. While he’s been known to indulge in Faulknerian rhapsodies to candleflame and horses, McCarthy here is at his most taut:

He woke toward the morning with the fire down to coals and walked out to the road. Everything was alight. As if the lost sun were returning at last. The snow orange and quivering. A forest fire was making its way along the tinderbox ridges above them, flaring and shimmering against the overcast like the northern lights. Cold as it was he stood there a long time. The color of it moved something in him long forgotten. Make a list. Recite a litany. Remember.

So these two books are amazing, and totally different, and that leaves me in an interesting place as a writing teacher–for that’s what I’m beginning to consider myself, more than anything else.  It wasn’t a slip-up that I told the ENG212 parents on Thursday night that the class is a writing class where we happen to read some books.  But what do we do, when teaching writing, about style?  Is it appropriate to teach a specific formal writing style when students are writing analytically?  Is there such thing as one formal writing style?  And what, pray, do I do about my Creative Writing students?  Do I have a responsibility to show them examples of different writing styles, or will that just confuse them?

I got the final-ish draft of my short story from this summer, with Allyson’s comment, in Saturday’s mail.  I haven’t looked at it yet, but all of this reading and thinking about writing makes me want to.  I am not sure if I’m going to keep working on the story in the foreseeable future, but I’d kind of like to see it finished.  If that’s possible.